Five months into the COVID-19 pandemic, I got a call. The voice said, “We’re getting rid of this car. If you want it, it’s free, but you’ll have to come and get it now.” After 15 years without a car,  I was ready to be able to buy a watermelon, visit relatives out of town without “riding the pooch” (taking the Greyhound bus), and go places when it was rainy or cold or hot without suffering the consequences of biking in Mother Nature. I found a friend willing to wear a mask too, so we bit the bullet and drove a couple of hours to get the car. We didn’t die. So, five years ago, I returned home with a used but working vehicle. I could no longer call myself car-free.

It hardly seems like half a decade of being a car owner again. It takes me back to when I got my first car in eighth grade, a VW Beetle. It actually caught on fire once on the way to get a birthday cake for my mother. I jumped out and forgot to tell my brother I saw flames in the rear view mirrot. He escaped, though, and found a hose to put it out. The fire department still came. There was no cake that year, sorry to say. Or maybe there was, I dont recall.

After that, I had an El Camino which had electrical problems. Next was a Toyota truck. I crashed it into a fence taking a cute neighbor on the drill team home from school in the rain. It still drove with the passenger side door smashed in, but eventually I got rid of it because I didn’t know that you didn’t have to salvage a car just because insurance said so.

College time came, and I kept living at home to save money while still working part time. I was getting by without a car by riding the bus to  school and walking elsewhere. If I still had a bike, since I’d surely outgrown my kids’ bikes, I don’t recall. I doubt I kept riding much if at all. The suburbs are still not kind to cyclists, in fact they are downright deadly.

After community college, I got accepted into the University of Texas at Austin again. But instead I transferred out of state and traveled abroad, so I didn’t need a car for a few years. Other moves and cars came and went until that 15-year car-free stretch. And now there is this car.

It would have been easy to be lazy and fall back into mostly driving… except I didn’t. I couldn’t, really. Not a full five years plus into my “epic velocimania,” as former bicyclist and still buddy Sam once called my riding habit. I wasn’t about to let the convenience of the infernal combustion engine derail my grand biking adventure / experiment.

The interesting statistic that underscores this is that in the past half decade I’ve bicycled more than I’ve driven the car. I would have to do a lot of math to figure out the exact number, but I can tell you the car only has about 20,000 additional miles on it, and my average per year on bicycles is over 5,200 miles, or 26,000+ miles total.

That’s an accomplishment to be proud of as both a human animal who loves his Mother (Earth) — living on a planet that is dying from pollution caused by humans and fosssil fuels — and as a fathlete trying to at least maintain if not lose weight. But this is just an humble brag, because as I often say, many poor people can’t afford a car, or even a bicycle.

In fact, I am about to be one of those people again. A car-free future is in my, uh, upcoming period of time of life. That’s because the old car has multiple problems which make it too expensive and thus not worth fixing. Which is regrettable, because I have enjoyed and liked having it. I’m not gonna lie, it has been handy. Especially when I’ve had to take a bicycle into the bike shop for repair. Sometimes you just don’t want to bike to a movie and arrive all sweaty and then worry about your bike being stolen the whole time. Or the backpack just doesn’t hold all the food you want to buy at the grocery store. Etc.

But in the end, cars are a luxury, not a human right. They are climate-changing money pits that kill cyclists, many more pedestrians, and waaay more people in cars. When the time comes that I am unable to be car free again, I will look into sharing a car with neighbors or bum rides from friends. I may eventually bow down to the car-sharing corporations with their overpriced spooky driverless robot deathtraps. But I live near the bus, I still walk daily, and despite slowing down and an increasing list of ailments as I age, so far I still ride my bicycle daily.

Biking will almost always be more fun, healthy, and rewarding than driving. But tomorrow is not promised regarding my or amyone’s next daily bike ride, or even living through the day. Recently I’ve had several close calls with cars whose drivers I predicted would behave erratically, and I was right. So, I was able to anticipate their BS and evade crashes. Defensive bicycling is how I’ve been able to ride over 50,000 miles and never have a crash with a car. So far.

I was further reminded of the impermanence of life in one of my recent Buddhist meditation groups.  The teacher went over The “Five Remembrances” or “Five Subjects for Contemplation,” which are a cornerstone of Buddhist practice. I am no Buddhist, especially because I don’t meditate every day like you are supposed to. Although I aspire to. The five points are:

1. ​I am subject to aging; I have not gone beyond aging.
2. ​I am subject to illness; I have not gone beyond illness.
3. I am subject to death; I have not gone beyond death.
4. ​I must be parted from all that is dear and appealing to me.
5. ​I am the owner of my actions, heir to my actions, born of my actions, related to my actions, and live supported by my actions. Whatever I do, for good or for evil, to that will I fall heir.

The point is not to be morbid but to look at reality rationally — without attachments or cravings or aversions. And to try to live a life that is full of meaning, joy, service, and compassion for self and all beings. (Except for squirrels, which my mother calls tree rats, and they can all just die, Die, DIE! Just kidding. Although she’s not.) Such a state of enlightenment or Nirvana sounds nice, if very unlikely to be attainable. Especially when it’s so very hard not to yell at shitty distracted people sitting behind the wheels of their two-ton killing machines who almost kill you by driving so badly.

While I still have many miles to go before I attain Buddha nature, I do hope to “live to ride another day,” as wise Sam also says. Until I don’t. After death, I won’t have to worry about meeting my silly Strava goals, or paying the fucking rent, for car repairs, or spending one more second searching for that elusive right livelihood aka job. Or doing anything, for that matter.

Speaking of the alleged after life, I’m watching the show The Good Place. It’s a great show that both challenges and reinforces the status quo, and has fun doing it. The talented and hella cute Kristen Bell is great as an awesomely bad person who is mistakenly sent to “the good place.” She wants to be good, and tries hard but often fails. So relatable. (Hey girl, give me a call if things don’t work out with Dax.). Ted Danson is funny as the bumbling, well-intentioned architect. As an atheist / agnostic, I don’t really believe there is such a thing. The jury is still out for me. If there is, perhaps I’ll make it there, perhaps not. It’ll only really be a good place if they have bicycles, though.

On that note, I’ll end with some pictures of me and my friend Rhodney from earlier today. We were out on a ride and were happily surprised to find a new mural of The Dude from The Big Lebowski. A Dude Abikes, but The Dude Abides.

May you abide, and abike, as well.

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